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You guys suck!
I was like COPO, et al, and worked my tail off for my first ride - but heck, if I could hand a set of keys to an SSR to my responsible son - I wouldn't hesitate 'cause I know he came from a good gene pool. Just because I had to, doesn't always mean my son has to.
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I'm gonna ride the fence on this one. First; I'd like to agree that he should pay for his own first ride, however, I've met Charlie's son and he seems to be a lot like my son.
I didn't follow my own advice here. When my son was 15 (not quite, actually) I bought him an '83 Z-28. Hi miles, and cheap, but still.........
My hopes were that he would work on the car and be a responsible driver when he turned 16. Where we live he got quite a bit of time behind the wheel long before his 16th birthday. Yeah, it's not legal but it paid off. The only minor problems he had with the car were a couple of scrapes on the rear quarter and the front facia because he was still learning just how much space one of those things takes up!
Yes, maybe we were lucky, but I felt I knew my son well enough to be able to trust him with a car that was fully capable of killing him and whoever might have been with him. He grew up around hi-perf vehicles. Heck, I brought him home from the hospital in a 427 Corvette. The kid still knows what it feels like to be pinned to the backrest when you stab the throttle. And BTW, I did the same for my daughter. They're both still around and have turned out to be safe responsible drivers.
Charlie, you know the boy better than we do. Do what you think is right for him and for you, and like ALL the rest of us, Pray that you've trained him well and that he'll be safe.